She Taught Nurses How To Fight COVID-19. It Killed Her Anyway.
ACROSS AMERICA — Iris Meda, a 70-year-old former nurse from Texas, knew it was risky returning to work during a pandemic. It was her calling, though, and two months after her January retirement, Meda went back to the classroom to teach other nurses how to fight the coronavirus.
She did it until coronavirus killed her.
Before Meda died, she spent months teaching nursing basics to students in-person for Collin College in suburban Dallas.
“She felt like if she could gain momentum by teaching some of those basics, we could contain any virus,” her daughter, Selene Meda-Schlamel, told The Washington Post on Monday. “She wanted to do something that would make a difference.”
For months, Meda taught nursing basics to dozens of students in person at the college. In October, a student exposed her to the virus, the school said.
Meda later tested positive. She died Nov. 14.
"Iris was a positive, giving, upbeat person that lit up any room she was in," said organizers of a GoFundMe page dedicated to helping pay for Meda's funeral and medical expenses. "Her positivity helped her survive a lot of challenges in her life."
Meda — who was not only a nurse and a mother but also a wife and a sister — is one of more than 264,000 people in the United States who have lost their lives to COVID-19. On Friday, total cases surpassed 13 million and more than 90,000 people remained hospitalized due to complications from the virus.
Despite months of planning, many U.S. hospital systems have no available beds, and nurses and doctors are in short supply. Meanwhile, coronavirus infection rates among nurses and other front-line workers have doubled the patient load on those left standing.
The Latest
As the United States on Friday reported yet another record number of new daily coronavirus cases, a telling number of parents frustrated with lockdowns and upheaval in U.S. public schools are pulling their kids out altogether.
Though no nationwide data is available, state numbers illustrate the startling trend.
Two and a half months into the school year, Massachusetts found enrollment in public schools was down 37,000, or almost 4 percent, from last year. Enrollment in New York City public schools is down 31,000 students, or 3.2 percent, according to preliminary data obtained by Chalkbeat.
Elsewhere, officials in Montana reported a drop of 2 percent, according to information compiled by The New York Times, while Wisconsin and Missouri have reported declines of 3 percent. North Carolina has reported a drop of 4 percent.
“In some cases, the charter schools are taking them, in some cases privates and parochials,” Glenn Koocher, head of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, told The Times. “The bigger tragedy is that some kids aren’t getting anything, because they’ve fallen off the map.”
The new data emerges as the United States reported more than 197,600 new cases of coronavirus on Saturday, a record as the country nears a sobering 200,000 cases per day.
Over the past week, the country has averaged more than 167,000 new daily cases of the virus.
South Dakota on Friday became the latest state where more than 1 in every 1,000 residents have now died of coronavirus-related causes, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. In fact, nine states have reached that milestone — New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Mississippi and North Dakota.
While the latest numbers seem staggeringly high, a new study by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paints a worse picture. In the study, researchers assert that only 1 in 8 coronavirus infections have been reported in the United States.
The study looked at numbers through the end of September, when roughly 7.2 million infections had been reported. The CDC says that number was likely closer to 52.9 million.
Since the pandemic began, people living and working at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities account for more than 101,000 of total deaths, or about 40 percent, a New York Times analysis of federal, state and local data found.
As states continue to add new restrictions amid the surge in cases, the U.S. Supreme Court this week sided with churches and synagogues in New York, ruling 5-4 that the state could not enforce certain restrictions on houses of worship.
The decision contradicts the court's previous rulings on similar cases that deferred to local officials on pandemic-related restrictions, according to the Post.
In its ruling, the court decided that limiting attendance at houses of worship in orange and red zones was too restrictive.
In sports, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson on Thursday became the highest-profile player to test positive for the coronavirus. Jackson, the NFL's reigning Most Valuable Player, is one of several players and staffers on the team to contract the virus this week.
Saturday's Numbers
At least 1,410 new coronavirus deaths and 197,686 new cases were reported in the United States on Friday, according to a Washington Post database. Over the past seven days, the United States has averaged more than 167,274 cases each day.
As of Saturday, 43 states and Puerto Rico remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.
More than 13 million people in the United States had tested positive for the coronavirus as of Friday afternoon, and more than 264,800 have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Stay up to date on the latest coronavirus news via The New York Times or Washington Post.
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This article originally appeared on the Across America Patch
